Tangariro
by Badmitton
Summary: Modern AU. Benders were long thought exterminated in the Great Inquisition, but Aang and a few others in the newer generation are rediscovering the ancient arts. Can Aang and the others restore balance to a long-corrupted world without gathering their own verdigris and rotting away?
1. Chapter 1

Modern AU. Benders were long ago exterminated in the Great Inquisition, but Aang and a few others in the newer generation are rediscovering the ancient arts. Can Aang and the others restore balance to a long-corrupted world without gathering their own verdigris and rotting away?

I'm going to try to keep from anything too dramatic in terms of character favoritism, but keep in mind that I love Toph. She's awesome. So bear with me if I lapse into blatant partisanship. *turns and breaks the fourth wall* Here, Toph, have a cookie. Oh, hey, Aang. Umm... you can have a rock.

Anyway, I haven't decided on any pairings yet, so drop me a review if you have any ideas for me.

* * *

Looking up, Aang paused his music. His feet had dropped him without ceremony in front of the familiar iron gates. Lost in thought, he had not noticed the miles going by, and was surprised to find himself back at school for his second year. Sighing, Aang read the wrought words at the very peak of the gates: Tau Sha's School for Troubled Teens,

He was old enough now to know that "Troubled" was code for "Bending," but he knew better than to whisper the word, much less speak of it openly. If your heart was made of pure evil, you would spread a rumor that someone was bender, and watch as they were taken away. Sure, they would come back in a few months, but as a hollow husk of a person, all light gone from their eyes.

It was clear that the school was from a bygone era, all built from brick and iron (except, of course, for the east corner). It was from the time of segregation before the Great Inquisition, but now it was just a regular boarding school, its grassy quad filled with first-year students milling around, not knowing what to do with themselves.

Feeling a sense of accomplishment, Aang held his breath and marched out onto the grassy knoll, passing the confused-looking first-years before skipping up the steps to the dormitories, his backpack slung over one shoulder.

He started to walk up the stairs to his room, but decided mid-stride to head to the south wing to find his friends, Sokka and Katara. As he turned, an arm reached out and clotheslined him, knocking him to the ground

"Sorry, pal. Random luggage check."

Aang looked up in time to see a tall girl in a uniform yank the backpack from his arm. He quickly stood, anger boiling up from his stomach, but he just as quickly stepped back, taking a calming breath. Messing with a prefect on your first day always ended up being a severely dire mistake. They were known to hold grudges, and the administration encouraged them to use violence as punishment for "misconduct" however imaginary the transgression might be. Even if prefects, however, were flower unicorns whose most deadly attack was to spray rainbows out of their butts, Aang had other reasons not to get angry.

"You sure have a lot of orange clothes. What are you, an airbender?"

The girl standing to the prefect's right gasped at the racial slur, the other to her left sighed and said in a bored rasp,

"That's a little racist, don't you think, Azula?"

"Shut up, Mai, what do you know?"

"Just saying."

"Umm..." Aang interrupted, reaching for his disemboweled backpack.

"Whatever," Azula huffed, and, without a second glance at Aang, emptied the contents of his backpack onto the ground and stalked away, leaving one girl to hurry after her and the other to slouch languidly against the wall.

"Hey," she said noncommittally to Aang before getting up and moseying away.

Aang's cheeks turned red as his underwear and other personal effects were scattered across the hall by scurrying feet.

* * *

Aang raised his hand to knock on Katara's door, holding his breath. He hadn't seen her all summer, and was excited to talk to her again. She was the only one he could really talk to and trust, and he was looking forward to their long talks by the ponds. He knocked quickly, unable to contain his excitement, but to his disappointment, she wasn't in her room. Aang shrugged off the sinking in his heart.

_Oh well. _he thought _She'll be back later. _

Perking up, he trotted down the hall to the opposite wing where the boys lived and knocked enthusiastically on Sokka's door. A sleepy-eyed Sokka opened the door, his clothes rumpled and his ponytail undone.

"Do I know- Aang! Hey, buddy! You're not bald anymore! Did Gyatso stop all his monkeying around? Get it? 'Cause he's a monk?" He giggled at his own joke, but Aang squirmed uncomfortably.

"Can we talk about that later, Sokka? With Katara?"

"Hm?" Sokka eyed him quizzically, then shrugged. "Sure. Hey, do you want to come in and play Portal with me? Come on, classes don't start until tomorrow."

Aang started to decline, but stopped mid-word

_What the hay._

"Sure, Sokka, why not?"

* * *

Well, that's it. I hope you like. I'm not going to pretend to not crave reviews the way any fanfiction writer does, so drop me a line.

Kisses,

~The Bad Mitton


	2. Chapter 2

Well, here we go again. The chapters are coming out quickly, eh? Well, let's see what happens when school starts.

Enjoy!

* * *

Sokka surfaced from underneath the black water with a gasp.

"Holy jeepers! It's freezing! And dark! I can't see a thing!"

Katara splashed him gently, reveling in the chance to waterbend. She felt also, however, disgusted and ashamed of herself, the product of a lifetime's worth of schooling. Shaking her head, she braced herself against one of the slats of wood underneath the raft and kicked her feet up to float, saying,

"Come on, Sokka, it's not that bad."

"Yes it is! Look at my teeth. Do you see them chattering! Tell me that's not bad!"

"Okay, fine, it's bad, but you know this is the only place we can meet."

"You mean the only place _you_ can meet."

Katara glared at him so fiercely that he could feel her gaze in the dark. He winced.

"Sorry."

They floated in silence for a few minutes, waiting for Aang. The large wooden platform that floated in the pond rocked and strained against its anchor. Katara placed her hand on one of the buoys that held it aloft, secretly wishing along with Sokka that they didn't have to meet there, underneath the raft. Still, she couldn't think of anywhere else on school grounds where they couldn't possibly be seen or overheard by anywhere else. If anyone saw her or Aang bending...

Katara frowned. She would bet her left buttock that if anyone ever saw them, they would both disappear, never to be seen again. Their families would be taken in for "questioning," and...

Katara shook her head again, lowering her face into the water so that only her nose poked out. All the same, she was glad she had Aang to confide in.

As if responding to her thought, Aang came up from under the raft, splashing and gasping.

"Hey, guys," he said cheerfully, though his teeth had already begun to chatter.

"Hey, man," Sokka said, raising a blue hand. "So why are we here?"

Aang flicked him on the head with an air marble, grinning.

"I have something awesome to tell you guys." Sokka rubbed his head, frowning.

"What? did you finally decide to stop being a vegetarian?"

"No." Aang lowered his voice, instinctively looking around. "I got airbending tattoos."

Katara gasped, nearly drowning herself. Aang held up his hands.

"No, no. No complete ones. Just under my hair."

"Aang, that's so dangerous!" Katara cried. "What if the tattoo artist had recognized it? The police could be looking for you right now!"

"Don't worry, don't worry!" Aang held his hands out, looking around nervously. He hoped fervently that her voice didn't carry out across the pond. "Gyatso did it for me."

Katara paused and held her breath, looking for some other reason why it might be a bad idea. Airbending tattoos were a slap in the face to the federal law, and the last thing she wanted was for Aang to get into trouble with the higher-ups.

"How did you know what they looked like?" Sokka asked, "The tattoos, I mean?"

"Gyatso has some old books and scrolls that's helped me master..."

"Pshooo!" Katara spit water all over their secret hideout. "Illegal books! Scrolls!"

"Katara, I know what you're going to say." Aang's face grew solemn. "I know it's dangerous and stupid, but I just get this feeling that I need to be close to my past - close to other airbenders- if I want to... want to..."

"Want to what?"

"I... I'm not sure exactly. It's like there's something I'm supposed to do. Gyatso understands..." Aang looked away, dipping his chin into the water."

"I'm sorry, Aang," Katara said in a softer tone, putting her hand on his shoulder. She felt bad, wishing she hadn't been so harsh. She really did think that getting an airbending tattoo was dubious at best, but she remembered how cheerful and upbeat Aang had been when she revealed that she was a waterbender. He hadn't scolded her for telling him or reminded her that he could be a spy using tricks and chicanery to lull her into a false sense of security. For that, she had always been grateful, and she resolved to listen to what he had to say. "Tell me about it."

"Well..." Aang took a deep breath. "Right when school ended for the summer holidays last year, I started having this dream. In my dream, this old man wearing a red robe kept staring at me."

"Dude," Sokka breathed, "That is _creepy_." Katara frowned at Sokka and splashed him."

"Hey!"

"Keep going, Aang."

"Well, that's it. Every night for a week or so I dreamed about Roku."

"Roku?"

"Somehow, I knew his name." Sokka wiggled his fingers above the water.

"_Creepy_"

"So, when I went home, I told Gyatso." Katara nodded. Gyatso knew everything about Aang, having raised him. He knew about Aang's airbending and encouraged him to develop, yet control his ability. Katara knew that Aang loved Gyatso more than anyone else in the world.

Katara had drifted off while thinking about Aang and Gyatso, but quickly tuned back into Aang.

"... but when I told him his name was Roku, he dropped everything and locked himself in his study for the rest of the evening. When he came out, he told me that I needed to complete my mastery of airbending over the summer. Gyatso said that normally airbenders get their tattoos after they become masters, but if I did that my hair wouldn't have had time to grow back, so I got mine at the beginning of the summer." Aang paused, at first looking morose, then beamed widely. "So, yeah! Master airbender here."

"Tattoos, huh?" Sokka said, rubbing his chin. "Can I see them?"

"Sokka, that defeats the point of hiding them."

"You really mastered Airbending?" Katara said skeptically, a bit jealous. Her own bending was sub-par, if what she had heard from the whispered stories of ye olden times were true.

"Well, I still have a lot to learn, but Gyatso says I'm ready."

"Ready for what?

Aang shrugged.

"Who knows?"

* * *

Aang walked down the hall towards his classroom the next day, exhausted from his nighttime outing with Sokka and Katara.

_Why would I stay out so late before the first day of class? I'm such an idiot!_

He was so exhausted, in fact, that he thought he was dreaming when he saw a very pale pig lying contentedly outside his classroom door. It was snorting gently and wearing a green and gold vest with a pocket in it. Aang did a serious double-take before sneaking up and poking its backside with his foot. The pig didn't react other than to make a soft "squee" sound, so Aang shrugged it off and stepped into his mathematics class.

He quickly selected a desk and sat down, arranging his things in front of him. He pulled out his pencil case, but frowned when he saw that all the pencils had been broken in half. He had forgotten that Appa had gotten into his bag right before he left for the semester. He must have bitten the pencils.

Aang smiled at the thought of Appa, an odd creature that Gyatso and he and found while hiking the wildlife preserve that they lived on and tended. The creature was only very small at the time, so, after much begging, Aang was permitted to raise him.

_I miss you, buddy_.

"Good morning, class." The teacher had arrived, so all the students stood and bowed. Suppressing a tired moan, Aang lowered himself into his seat as soon as was socially acceptable.

Luckily for him, the class was so boring he didn't even need to pay attention. Not only had all the material been covered in first year, but the teacher also paused for long spaces to literally write on the board every single thing that came out of her mouth. Everyone was glad, then, for the relief when the teacher noticed someone listening to music.

"Young lady!" she cried shrilly.

"I wonder if she's going to write that down, too?" a dark-haired student whispered to his comrade a few rows up from Aang. The teacher looked up and frowned, but quickly turned her attention back to the original offending student.

"Take those earphones out right this second!" she screeched, her dry old voice reaching bat-like proportions.

"Oh, but master," the girl replied, pausing a moment to blow a strand of her long bangs out of her face. "I'm very carefully reading everything you write on the board." The dark-haired girl smiled in a sickly-sweet, highly-sarcastic manner as the mathematics teacher grew more red than a turnip.

A few students chuckled, but most were aghast at the girl's sass. If you talk back to a teacher, you can be sure you'll go to bed with some nasty welts.

Meanwhile, the boy who had muttered the joke a few rows away from Aang couldn't suppress his laughter, so instead quietly held his breath, his shoulders shaking.

"Dude, what's so funny?" his friend asked. It took him a few moments to reply, but finally he whispered.

"She's blind, man. That was some serous sauce."

"Silence!" the teacher screamed, spittle flying everywhere. "Young lady," she said in a dangerously quiet voice. "You will go to the prefect's locker immediately." Aang winced. Everyone knew that the prefect locker was where you're sent for the prefects to politely and professionally wallop the tar out of you. "And don't come back until you've learned your lesson."

The girl, surprisingly, didn't look fazed. She simply stood up, sticking a wire hanging from her headband into her mouth, and marched to the door, all the while pointing a small computer at the room ahead of her. As she opened the door, however, the pig bounced in, squealing and bumping at her legs excitedly. This time, the whole class laughed.

"And take your filthy pig with you!" The teacher yelled over the ruckus. "And the rest of you settle down if you don't want to follow her out!"

The girl picked up the handle on the pig's vest and, offering a large grin to the class, made the peace sign and stepped out with the still-squealing pig.

Sighing and smoothing her skirt, the instructor resumed the lesson, while Aang and the rest of the class continued to stare, aghast, at the door.

* * *

R&R, peeps, and I'll give you... um... *digs in pocket* a mint! Mostly uneaten, too! What a bargain!


	3. Chapter 3

I'm not too pleased with this chapter, but I hope you enjoy reading it anyway.

* * *

"Okay, I'll see you guys later."

Sokka picked up his backpack and headed towards the absolutely ancient gymnasium, leaving Aang and Katara sitting on the grassy quad.

"Uh, Sokka," Katara said, cocking an eyebrow. "Swim practice doesn't start until next week." Sokka turned back, striking a pose.

"I am done with that sissy sport! I'm trying out for boxing."

"Boxing?"

"But you love swimming!"

Aang and Katara shared a glance and laughed.

"Does this" Katara asked, "have anything to do with Suki being the captain of the boxing team?" Sokka blushed.

"No!" He cried indignantly, though not quite convincingly enough. "I just need something more, you know, punchy-fighty. It's man stuff, Katara, you wouldn't understand."

"If it's man stuff, then why is Suki the captain?"

Aang scratched his head.

"Now that I think about it, there are an awful lot of girls on the team. I wonder why that is?"

Sokka held his breath until his face turned red, making a squeaking sound before marching away.

Aang and Katara just laughed.

* * *

"Morning, Azula."

"Oh, good, you're here. It looks like it's time for an appointment with the white-tipped cane."

Toph laughed. A year of practice made it come out remarkably genuine.

"Oh, Azula, you crack me up. You know, if I didn't use a brainport, we could be twins. You and I with our blind-people canes together forever."

She ran up and gave Azula a painfully sarcastic hug. A few of the other prefects in the room chuckled, but were quickly silenced by Azula's blazing glare.

"Get off of me, you freak!" Azula cried, her temperature rising. "The corner, now!"

Toph smiled, and this time her glee was authentic. As much as she hated getting her butt whipped for stupid things (at breakfast she snatched Azula's muffin and then ate it right in front of her and her stupid prefect posse) she loved getting under Azula's skin even more.

Following a long-standing tradition, Toph went to "the corner" (really? They couldn't have been more imaginative?) and grabbed her ankles. She felt the cane whistle and heard it thump before she felt anything.

_I'm a rock. I'm a rock,_ she thought before taking a deep breath and making a stupid face at Azula from between her legs.

"Did a bug land on me?"

Azula practically screeched and let fly a veritable volley of blows.

_Stone. Cold, hard, stone._

Toph held her breath and kept her face and body expressionless until the head prefect wore herself out.

"You done?" she asked. Once again, much practice helped her to keep her voice level and nonchalant. Azula gave her one hard whack for good measure before hissing between her teeth.

"Get out."

The small blind girl stood up, brushing imaginary dirt from her knees as she went. Azula was panting and furious. Toph patted her on the shoulder as she passed.

"I hope you had as much fun as I did."

"WHA-"

"Here," Digging into her pant's pockets and pulling out a nickel, Toph flipped the coin to Azula, saying, "same time next week?" She grinned as she felt the taller girl's temperature rise by several degrees.

"Make it tomorrow, you insufferable little-"

Toph slammed the door to the prefects' room and let her grin fall. She walked tall, her pig following her, to her locker. As soon as she knew she was alone, she hooked her fingers behind her back and pressed them to her rear, doing a little dance.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow-" She swore a little, rubbing the rising welts as her pig squealed concernedly at her feet. "It's okay, boy. Ow, ouch-" Suddenly, she stopped and leaned against her locker, whistling innocently.

"The definition," he said as he drew closer, "of stubborn, is if you continue to do something, even though you know it's going to hurt you, just because you're too proud to stop. That's insane. Also, I heard you a second ago."

"Whatever, Zuko." Toph huffed. "What do you know?"

"I know you think you're proving something by needling Azula, but I can guarantee that you'll break before she does."

Toph resented that. She liked to think herself a mountain. An immovable, obsidian keystone.

_A stupid prefect sure as hell isn't going to break me. _

"You wanna bet on that?" She asked noncommittally, hiding her annoyance.

"No."

There was a long silence.

"When are you going back?"

"Tomorrow." Toph unconsciously rubbed her backside.

"How did you tick her off this time?"

"I gave her a nickel and said 'see you next week?'."

They both chuckled. Zuko wandered away, his hands shoved deep into his khakis. Slouching against her locker, Toph stared sightlessly after him, still irritated that he would suggest her breaking.

_What does he know?_ she thought, _it's not like we've had any life-changing field trips together._

She dug through her locker and grabbed her books, fuming.

_Challenge accepted. _

* * *

Okkaaay... so in this chapter I was going to write the whole thing with Sokka and Suki (you know, where he's all like "look how manly I am" and she's all "nope"), but then I thought "What the hell? We've all seen the show? Why would I bother recreating that?" I mean, I guess if you want it I can put it in, but...

So anyway, that's how this chapter turned into a boring, blatantly filler/character introduction chapter. This is UNACCEPTABLE!

Man, I love Adventure Time... Okay, I'm getting distracted. Ciao, y'all!


	4. Chapter 4

Aang and Katara shivered under the old raft, trying to collect themselves. Aang took a deep breath and shot a spiral of air towards his friend, but, unfortunately, he sneezed in the middle of the exercise. By the time the broken air current reached Katara, it was nothing more than a gentle zephyr. Inwardly, Katara sighed in relief. She had barely been able to lift a thin sheet of ice to protect herself. It had quavered significantly at the mild wind Aang had thrown at her. Aang braced his arms against a corner of the raft, slumping.

"This sucks. I wish we could practice somewhere else." Katara nodded.

"It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so cold."

"Maybe for you. There's hardly any air under here!"

Katara sighed. Aang was anxious to practice airbending, and he made his intentions clear by constantly begging her to practice with him. Katara, however, didn't feel his drive. Her bending was pathetically weak, and she wasn't altogether convinced that learning waterbending was in any way important. An insistent voice in the back of her mind told her that she should abandon her ability, finish school, and get job. Bending would only ever get her into trouble.

Shaking her head, Katara tried to dispel the discouraging thoughts. Aang would be crushed if she told him she didn't want to practice anymore.

"Can we please practice in the woods tonight, Katara?" Aang put on his best puppy-dog grin. "Just this once?" Feeling guilty for her thoughts, Katara reluctantly agreed.

"Okay, but he have to be really careful. The prefects patrol there sometimes." Aang rolled his eyes. "patrol" for the prefects meant going out into the woods, getting drunk, and engaging in various debaucheries. Unless, of course they had the misfortune of going out with Azula, who was a freak even among her own kind. Everyone knew that when it was her turn to go on patrol, she would march around with her flashlight and actually search the woods for who-knows-what in her relentless paranoia. No one cared to find out what would happen if she caught someone out there after curfew.

Breaking from his bemusing thoughts, Aang followed Katara out to the edge of the lake where they climbed gratefully out of the frigid water and ran to the woods several hundred yards away. Katara ran deep into the woods, not stopping until she was positive they wouldn't be seen from the outer wall. Aang, who had fallen behind when he stopped to grab his backpack, ran up and clicked on a flashlight on his keychain. Katara hissed.

"What're you doing?"

"You want to practice in the dark?"

"No.. well... fine. Just point it away from school." Aang shrugged and, with a burst of wind, leapt into a branch and tucked the flashlight into a small knot so that it would shine down on a small clearing. Pleased with his work, he leapt down and grinned broadly.

"You ready?"

"Shoot, I forgot to bring water. Hold on" Katara furrowed her brow in intense concentration before lifting her hands to slowly and painstakingly draw a small globule of water from her sopping clothes. "I did it!" She cried, pleased with her work.

"Awesome," Aang said, genuinely pleased. "Now," he settled into a mock-serious tone "give me your best shot."

They practiced for the better part of an hour, throwing and blocking blows from each other. They both felt better out in the open air, their muscles able to warm and their limbs unrestricted. Katara finally felt like she was getting a hold on her waterbending, and Aang was just happy to be able to express that part of himself that festered and itched while he was at school. He realized that he wanted more than anything to be free, and somehow airbending helped him to feel like freedom was within reach.

They were just about to begin another exercise when they heard a rustling and a faint voice. Katara froze, dropping her globe of water onto Aang's head. Frantically, Aang leapt into action, grabbing Katara and veritably hurling her into a tree. Zooming up the tree in which he had left his flashlight, he clicked it off and wedged himself between two branches and held his breath. He was aware that he wasn't well-hidden, but there wasn't enough time to move to a better spot, for the foliage was opening and a bright flashlight was shining on the ground where he had stood only moments ago.

_Damn it_, Katara thought from her well-shielded place in the tree, _I hate her._

"Did you hear something, Ty Lee?" Azula said in her shrill voice. "It looks like these bushes have been disturbed."

"Probably just a platypus-bear," interrupted an angry-looking prefect Aang didn't recognize, "Can we go in now?" Azula rounded on him.

"We go in when I say so. Got it?" She gave him the crazy eye and he quickly backed down. Azula continued to scan the area, standing stock still in some horrifying farce of a predator searching for its prey. Aang was struck anew by the vibes of pure insanity that poured abundantly from her every pore. His muscles cramped inconveniently and his arms shivered. He longed to readjust himself, but he was directly below the head prefect, and he feared for his life if she would look up. No one would notice if a second and fourth year went missing in the woods. No one would ever find their bodies. Aang gulped silently, wondering if his thoughts were really overdramatic.

The girl standing beside Azula shrugged suddenly.

"Come on, Azula," she said cheerily. "It doesn't look like anything's here." Azula tensed and then suddenly relaxed.

"Fine," she sighed, and turned to go. Just as Aang was about to breath a sigh of relief, he noticed a drop of water falling from his nose, headed directly towards the top of crazy-lady's head. Grimacing in pure terror, he instinctively held out a hand as if to pull it back but-

The water stopped, hovering gently in midair. In a dazed wonder, Aang flicked his wrist and the drop went flying harmlessly into the sod

_No way, but, _he shook his head, _No, it's coincidence. Katara must have done that_. He looked up at her, but she was hiding her face in her hands, sure they were about to be discovered. She caught his eye through the cracks in her fingers and gave a start at his shocked and almost horrified countenance. By then the troupe of prefects had gone, taking with them the light from their flashlight. The last rustlings of their feet faded away as the scene faded to black.

* * *

Prime Minister Ozai barely managed to conceal a scowl as the last man in the meeting entered the room. He hated these meetings, not because they were tedious (they were) but because they reeked of an age-old power struggle that he found irksome.

"Good morning, Mr. Beifong." he managed smoothly, his smile looking a little like a snarl.

"Prime minister."

They shook hands. Lao Beifong was the leading tycoon in all things weapons. He began as a prevalent biochemist, working mostly in animal bioengineering before he made a breakthrough in the field of chemical weapons. From there, he quickly rose to the top of the pile, not only guiding his own company to a firm monopoly of resources, but also somehow snapping up leading shares in most of the companies that manufactured weapons outside his personal expertise. To sum up, he was powerful, arrogant, and a bug under Ozai's skin.

"How's your family, minister?"

"Fine, just fine. My daughter tells me that she's getting along quite well with your girl."

They both chuckled. Not because they knew that their respective daughters hated each other (they did), but because they knew that this was how the game went. They would exchange pleasantries, then go about the meeting with extreme affability; but they both knew what it was really about - a mad grab for power.

For the longest time, Ozai had the upper hand. He had the government clenched in his fist, and the world's military was under his control. As Beifong grew more prevalent, however, it also became clear that a coup would be disastrous. Not only did Lao own every weapon the military used, Ozai was sure he had some newly-developed weapons that he was keeping under wraps in case of an emergency. At this point, the prime minister dared not cross him, but he was waiting eagerly for a chance to take his empire away from him.

These thoughts in mind, Ozai held out his hands pleasantly.

"Shall we begin?"


End file.
